


In the Darkness, With You

by Azael



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF John, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Post Reichenbach, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azael/pseuds/Azael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years was a long time, when it felt like one of your arms was missing. Still, John's parents hadn't raised a crier, and a few tours of Afghanistan certainly beat any ability or inclination to indulge in self-pity out of him. So he got on with it. And then the crazy bastard came back from the dead, literally. Because things hadn't been complicated enough when he was alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Darkness, With You

**Author's Note:**

> My first work on AO3, first work in Sherlock fandom, and first vampire!fic. I have no editor or britpicker, so if something seems wrong, please let me know. Tenses may be fubar. Constructive criticism welcomed. I really just felt the need to write a vamp!sherlock fic that I would want to read. 
> 
> I hope John seems in character, I thought his reaction here, while bringing a little black humour to the piece, also seems like a feasible reaction for an ex-solider in mourning who thinks he's losing his mind.
> 
> In this fic one is going to sparkle, no one is going to angst about not having a soul, and no one will wear a lace trimmed shirt. That is all.
> 
> AZAEL

Three years was a long time, when it felt like one of your arms was missing.

Since the Fall, which was as close to talking about what had happened as John Watson was willing to get, he had gotten on with things, in the stoic British way that he had. He worked full time at the clinic, dated pleasant enough ladies, moved to a one bedroom apartment that he barely furnished and couldn't think of as home, and tried to pretend that there wasn't a gaping hole in his life where Sherlock Holmes used to fit.

He had heard from a number of reputable sources that given time, the mourning would end and he would wake up one day and be halfway through his morning coffee before he realised that he hadn't thought of the consulting detective once. Apparently at that point in the healing process, he could begin to move on, think about his best friend without his mind immediately jumping to the fall, without feeling like he'd just pressed hard on a deep bruise in his chest. Three years in, he still felt it as fresh as the first day.

Still, John's parents hadn't raised a crier, and a few tours of Afghanistan certainly beat any ability or inclination to indulge in self-pity out of him. So he got on with it. He breathed, his heart beat, and if he felt in detail the passing of every minute of every day he certainly didn't show it.

John got up at exactly 5.30, went for a jog before breakfast then showered. His hair was still cut so short it didn't require brushing, perhaps with a little more silver in it than he'd like to admit, but regular fitness kept his body firm, his bearing erect.

Sherlock's body had been a vehicle, but John thought his was a little closer to a temple. Not a very popular religion mind you; no amount of exercise could improve his height or remove the scar to his shoulder and what the harsh desert environment had done to line his face prematurely. And of course he enjoyed the occasional pint, and a biscuit with his tea. But he took pride in maintaining what he had. It was also hard to do anything but focus on his breathing and the burn in his muscles when he worked out.

And there it was, that first little thought about his ex-flatmate, sneaking so slowly into his awareness he didn't even notice it till his heart twisted in his chest. The mad bastard had insinuated himself into John's life exactly the same way. The doctor straightened, gave his own blue eyes a stern look in the bathroom mirror and got on with his morning.

His training in the military and time spent with London's only consulting detective had made a mark on John that not too many people would expect from the rather sensible, pleasant and thoroughly ordinary looking man. Leaving for work early as usual, he made sure to wave at the agent posted near his apartment building and then set about losing the one that he knew would be trailing him to the clinic. It was childish he knew, but annoying Mycroft felt like continuing a sacred tradition.

And really, the standards of these people. Where was M16 finding them? Was the only requirement finding the right token in a cereal box? This time, it was a man with a newspaper at the cafe opposite the door to his block of flats; he calmly folded his paper and walked parallel to John down the opposite side of the street. His coffee had been undrunk and abandoned when he left his table and when he had still had his legs crossed in his chair, the socks under his scuffed trainers had been corporate and black. A glaring discrepancy with his slightly shabby jeans and t-shirt. Really, the British Government needed to step up his game.

John maintained his casual pace, waiting for the chance to escape he knew without a doubt would occur if he took his time and let the madness of an inner-city London street at morning rush hour ensue.

Glancing further up the street, he spotted a delivery truck slowing as it headed towards him. Perfect. It stopped in a loading zone with an alley behind it and John stopped with it. He stripped his jacket and donned a baseball cap from the satchel bag he took to work each day. The very slightly amused doctor waited the inevitable thirty seconds or so for the agent across the street to lose his nerve and start to cross. Cap pulled low over his face, he strode to the opposite side of the street the operative had come from and walked casually off.

He estimated it would take somewhere between two to four minutes to realise that John hadn't ducked down that alleyway. By which time, because the ex-soldier was feeling particularly vindictive this morning, he would have turned down a street that led him _away_ from his workplace, and started to circumnavigate several blocks of London to approach from a completely different angle.

Allowing himself a little grin that was probably more teeth than smile, he cut down the first little side street that guaranteed that some poor rookie agent was going to have a very bad morning. If he heard a familiar, black velvet chuckle somewhere behind him, well he passed that off as his imagination. Or a passer-by. Years of military-honed instincts had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, and he sped up.

The sooner he got to his office, the sooner he could settle into his beige cardigan, in his beige office, with beige patients and his beige life.

 

* * *

 

Friday night stretched out ahead of Dr Watson like a threatening stormfront. The whole weekend was his, a mandatory mini-holiday Sarah had insisted he take because he hadn't had a full Saturday and Sunday off in months. There were reasons for that, namely too much time with his thoughts and no excuses to make to his well-meaning friends.

John stripped his unfashionable, sensible jacket at the front door, put a frozen dinner in the oven to heat, and poured a bottle of beer into a glass to go with it. He flicked the telly on, but the canned laugh tracks grated on his nerves till he muted it. He ate without tasting it, drank his evening beer, then checked the time. Only eight o'clock.

Excruciating.

Perhaps some exercise, then. Fifty push-ups, fifty sit-ups with his feet curled under the edge of the couch, and fifty squats did nothing to calm the hurricane in his brain. He flopped onto the floor, sweat beading on his tanned face, and stared at the crack in his ceiling. When would this interminable evening end?

He cleaned his single plate, single glass and cutlery, leaving them on the drying rack. He read the first chapter of a paperback crime novel, stopped to wonder if Sherlock could have deduced everything he needed to by then, and put the book down in disgust.

The load of washing he'd been putting off finally got done. Vacuuming was probably too loud for that time of night, but mopping was quiet. The bathroom and kitchen floors were sparkling by the time he was finished.

Nine thirty pm. Not even close to tired. He sighed and let himself sag out of his usual military-straight bearing, looking and feeling a defeated man.

There was a rap on the door, it pulled him out of the little spiral of self-pity he had begun to work himself into. The workout gear he was wearing, old white singlet and faded shorts, wasn't the best, but it was nothing to be ashamed of, either. His hand came up to rub absently against the scar on his shoulder, little more than a dimple in the flesh these days, then he headed for the front door. He opened it, looked up, and froze.

Wolf-grey eyes, skin like milk and a mop of defiant black curls.

John shut the door again, slammed it really, dark blue eyes wide enough to show whites all around. His small, tanned had left the surface of the door like it had scolded him.

“John,” said a slightly muffled voice from the other side of the offending object, achingly familiar and filling him with dread.

Hallucinations. Honestly. Looks like he's finally well and truly lost it. Officially balmy. One cracker short of a full box.

Funny, he had expected a mental-breakdown to feel different.

Half-numb fingers opened the drawer of his hall table and felt clumsily for the edge of the floating panel at the bottom. The notepad, pens and usual clutter rolled towards the back of the drawer as his hand finally slipped into the hidden, lower compartment and fastened around the object underneath. With one of his guns in hand, he simultaneously felt more like himself, and further towards insanity. Controlled descent.

His hands were screwing the dubiously legal silencer he also kept in that spot onto his gun before he even realised it. Ah, now that spoke of _proper_ intent, a little objective portion of his mind said, not just holding the weapon for comfort, but preparing it to be fired without calling down the police. Absolutely nuts. At least he was _committed_ to his mental break. Prepared to follow it through to the end, whether that meant using it on a figment of his loopy imagination or himself, he wasn't sure. He thought he'd wait and see how his crazy panned out before making any decisions.

John found himself sitting in his favourite armchair, the only thing he had taken from Baker St, finger resting against the trigger and eyes on the door. So when there was a knock on the window of the little balcony off his living room, he gave a full-body flinch, sprang up and fired at the figure beyond the glass.

In the split second before his finger fully retracted the trigger he saw the same tall, pale shape at the window that had been at his door, face comically shocked. The gun kicked back in his hands and the safety glass turned to a web of white cracks with a little hole in the middle. The shot was loud, even with the silencer it was much louder than the movies made it seem.

The moment after the bullet hit the window stretched out, glass hiding what had happened on the balcony, familiar scent from a fired weapon in the air, breath held in a chest tight with panic.

A bang on the wall, the soldier in John reacts and instantly brings his Ruger up again (one fired, one in the barrel, eight in the clip), and aims.

“Turn down that movie, Mr Watson!”

Some of the steel goes out of his spine. Mrs O'Brien, the tiny Irish senior citizen next door only calls him 'mister' instead of 'doctor' when she's really annoyed with him. He doesn't drop his arms, it would take too long to find his shooting stance again if he did, but does bring his gun back into a ready position by his shoulder.

“Sorry, ma'am!”

His eyes flicked back to the window, an utterly outraged face as familiar as his own stared back at him from one of the intact panes. Back into a shooting stance, though this time his finger hesitated over the trigger. The ghost that looked like his dead best friend rapped on the window again obnoxiously, as though to prove his point. Long arms then folded across his chest. One thin, violinist's finger tapped against his arm. A petulant child, over six feet tall.

“John, really! Would you please stop shooting and invite me in? I can explain.”

Great, now his hallucinations came with full Dolby surround sound. John knew better than to talk back, that would be a properly loopy thing to do.

Because attempting to shoot a figment of your imagination was not.

What the hell, consistency was for people not currently coming apart at the seams. He could not stop his feet from cautiously moving him closer to the back of his living room and the balcony. Slow steps, eyes never leaving his target. The apparition seemed impatient but content to wait, at least for now. A metre from the glass he stopped, switched his grip to a one-handed hold. Moving closer again, he cautiously extended a hand. Latch open, the window swung outward, followed closely by the barrel of John's Ruger. He poked it once, twice into the chest of the hallucination.

The surprisingly solid Sherlock sighed, and the sub and supertext was 'I can't believe how idiotic you are being, honestly.' Being mocked by his own cracked conciousness. The nerve. Vindictively, he poked the Sherlock mirage harder.

“If you let me come in, you can inspect me to your heart's content,” the figure rumbled in aristocratic tones.

A peculiar buzzing tone started at the back of John's head. What the hell, he may as well be polite to the Sherlock-ghost, “Come on in then,” he distantly heard a voice say, it sounded like his, then the floor was reaching up to slap him in the face.


End file.
